A Resource‐based View of the EU's Regional and International Leadership
| Author | Aseem Prakash,Adrienne Héritier |
| Date | 01 September 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12241 |
| Published date | 01 September 2015 |
A Resource-based View of the EU’s Regional
and International Leadership
Adrienne H
eritier
European University Institute
Aseem Prakash
University of Washington
Abstract
How does one explain the variation in the EU’s success in enacting and enforcing policies that lead to the supply of
regional or global public goods? We examine how the EU deploys its positional resources to enact laws that compel
governments or firms to contribute to the provision of public goods. We suggest that leaders such as the EU are able
to compel public goods contributions if they have the legal authority to do so, and are able to deploy their positional
resources to build effective coalitions or reduce the leverage of potential veto players. We look at two issue areas
empirically: banking and the environment. In the banking cases, the EU sought to provide regional public goods; in
the environmental cases, it sought to provide regional and global public goods. We examine instances of leadership
success as well as failure. In the banking cases, we examine Outright Monetary Transactions (success) and banking
single resolution mechanism (less successful); the environmental cases pertain to chemical regulation (success) and air-
line emissions (failure). These cases reveal the EU’s skill and limitations in deploying its positional authority to induce
contributions for public goods provision from EU member governments, EU firms and nonEU firms.
This special issue explores how political leadership exer-
cised by organizational actors mitigates collective action
problems, thereby correcting governance failures. Con-
sistent with the definition outlined in the introductory
essay by Prakash et al., we conceptualize leadership as
the orchestration of collective action towards a particu-
lar end and explore variations in its success. We exam-
ine the organizational leadership of EU actors: that is,
the EU and organizational actors (such as the European
Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission)
within it. Specifically, we seek to explain variations in
their success to enact and enforce regulatory policies
that compel governments or firms to contribute to the
provision of regional or global public goods (Karagiannis
and H
eritier, 2013). The policies we explore are redistrib-
utive in nature (also see Koremenos’article in this spe-
cial issue). Actors that are net losers in the bargain tend
to resist the EU’s regulatory initiatives. This is where the
EU’s political leadership comes in. It has to overcome
this resistance while taking into account the diversity of
preferences among its member governments and multi-
veto points it faces in its decision-making processes
(Tsebelis, 1995). How does it seek to accomplish these
complex tasks? Why does it succeed and why does it
fail?
Leadership is a highly researched issue in organiza-
tional theory (for excellent surveys see Chemers and
Ayman, 1993; Luthans, 1995; Northouse, 1997). Leader-
ship theories highlight the role of key actors in policy
change (Barnard, 1938). Policy success depends on the
attributes of leaders, followers, as well as the issue under
consideration. We focus on a single leader attribute, posi-
tional resource –i.e. formal competences as defined by
the institutional rules that apply in the decision-making
situation –and examine it in two issue areas. We suggest
that a leader’s appropriate understanding of its positional
resource (especially whether it has the legal mandate to
enact regulations) along with the skill in deploying it (i.e.
choosing an appropriate strategy to overcome possible
opposition to redistributive decisions) is necessary for
successful leadership. We expect leaders to fail when
they incorrectly assess or interpret their legal mandate or
fail to choose an appropriate strategy in view of institu-
tional restrictions. This is quite common because man-
dates are incomplete contracts and organizations need
to negotiate in grey areas (H
eritier, 2007). Hence, both
the skill in interpreting its mandate and building a win-
ning coalition are necessary to push through regulatory
changes that the ‘losers’view as redistributive or as man-
ifesting organizational overreach. This is not to say that
Global Policy (2015) 6:3 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12241 ©2015 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 6 . Issue 3 . September 2015 247
Special Section Article
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